3 years ago, when i lived in upstate Vampire State of NY , Pitt was about 5 hr drive away. had a friend from HS who went to ST. VIncent's College in Latrobe. went there before school started in 72, so i got to drink the real Rolling Rock beer and see Steelers in camp long before the JETS held it in Cortland.... so, i would have done a meet up then. now, too far to drive and i don't fly anymore.
Back to the topic at hand.... Back in the day, going to the draft seemed like a cool event to attend. Now the spectacle the NFL has turned it into... no thanks.
Guys. I moved a few messages out of this thread. Let's leave politics out of the Jets forum. Back to the topic. My calendar is becoming more and more clear. I will be able to make it happen. Does anyone locked down their hotel yet?
I was going to say this but didn't want to dampen anyone else's adventure. I attended one draft - 2007 (The Revis Draft) at Radio City - the good old days! Small venue by comparison. Not only that, I was there with a media credential. I didn't really get to access restricted areas much, as I was just a helper, but it did allow me to roam around to sit wherever I wanted to. Guess what? It was boring as hell. As in really dull. By the second round I could not wait to get out of there. If you are into the draft and enjoy following it. STAY HOME near a TV. When you attend a draft you remove yourself from all the discussions, speculations, details etc that TV provides. When you're at the draft, it's a pick followed by long long dead spaces. Even if the draft returned home to Radio City and I was invited to go, I'd probably say no.
I pretty much got forever turned off to the (televised) draft in 2019. I swear to God, every single backstory that they told about a player on the board was about something horrible and deeply personal. "His grandfather was murdered in a home invasion in the projects, he had a lot to overcome being shuffled from relative to relative", "His mother was murdered by her boyfriend when he was four, and he had nothing but saltines and cockroaches to eat until a neighbor found him a week later. Imagine being alone in the apartment with your dead, murdered mother? I can't imagine the challenges this young man has had to deal with, what a success story that he made it to the NFL." Somebody's Mom even got hit by a train. It was that bad, I am not kidding you. I even complained about it in the draft thread. I was in my living room and I said to my buddy, "Is there any sense of decency or propriety here?! This is not a circus sideshow . . . or is it?!" Anyway, I was so offended I only tune in when the Jets are on the board and then I change the channel. I won two free tickets off of WFAN @ Radio City in the early 90s, but I couldn't get my cousin to go with me, so I went home, lol. I was kind of at the end of my tether with it, anyway. Roger Goodell was practically feeling up and perving draftees under the radar when they would go up to get their jersey and pose with it. Uh, gross?
